Teen Testifies He Admitted To Killings To 'Look Cool'

Week 3 of the Brent Burke double-slaying trial is under way in Elizabethtown.

Burke is accused of killing his estranged wife, Tracy Burke, and her former mother-in-law, Karen Comer, in Comer's Rineyville, Ky., home in 2007.

The former Fort Campbell military police officer's attorney claims a teen killed the women.

A teenage witness who bragged about killing Tracy Burke and Karen Comer in September 2007 testified Monday that he made the story up.

The teen's testimony came as the third week of Brent Burke's double slaying trial got under way in Elizabethtown.

The focus of Monday's testimony was on the teen and the statements he made to at least two people.

The teen was 14 years old at the time the women were killed. He admitted to telling two friends that he had killed the women.

One of the friends, Ashley Dye, also took the witness stand Monday. She said she was scared when the teen showed her a bloody T-shirt and told her he'd committed the crime as part of a gang initiation.

The teen testified that his T-shirt became bloody when he suffered a cut on his head while wrestling with a friend during a driveway game of basketball.

He said he made the killing story up to "look cool." He said he realized it was a dumb thing to do, but said he wasn't thinking at the time.

"He pulled a wife beater out of his bag and a bloody towel and I said, 'What did you do?' and he said, 'It was for an initiation into my gang,'" Dye testified.

Investigators said the teen's story didn't match up with the crime scene. There was no indication of a robbery and the time frame given didn't match the evidence. The teen was cleared as a suspect.

Brent Burke's stepson and son testified last week that Brent Burke was the one who killed Tracy Burke and Comer.

The boys and their younger sister were inside the home when the women were killed.

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